Labor Relations Democracy Is Important

Labor Relations

Democracy is important to union administration because the union is representative of the workers. As such, the union's actions and policies should reflect the will of the people that the union represents. Thus, democracy is needed in order to ensure that union leadership and its policies are accountable to the union members, that the members have a say in how the union is to be run. Unions have some hallmarks of democracy, occasionally putting leadership to a vote and sometimes holding votes to ratify negotiated settlements. There are many forms of democracy, and unions may not be the most robust form, but they are usually democracies. If a union does not hold votes for its leadership, or does not allow ratification, then it might not be considered a true democracy, but the way most unions are constituted would fit the definition of democracy.

Parties negotiate by choice because it is the best way to reach an agreement. More structured forms of dispute resolution can be effective, but they are usually most costly, and the parties have less of a say in the final agreement. If they negotiate among themselves, then the parties will have more control over the final agreement and the process will hopefully take less time, cost less, and result in less acrimony. Only when negotiation by choice fails to result in agreement do other forms of negotiation typically come into play.

Section 8A of the National Labor Relations Act has a number of clauses. The situation as described in Section 2. This section reads "It shall be an unfair labor practice for an employer to dominate or interfere with the formation or administration of any labor organization or contribute financial or other support to it." In this decision, it appears that the NLRB erred in its judgment. Section 2 also says explicitly "…an employer shall not be prohibited from permitting employees to confer with him during working hours without loss of time or pay." The "financial support" clause of Section 2 does not appear to have been broken, since the employer is allowed to confer with the employees on company time. The only point of question is the direct management participation in the committee. This could be interpreted as being more than conference. The employee committees, in order to fulfill the criteria of Section 2, would have to be comprised strictly of employees. These employees would then be able to conference with management, but management would not be considered an active participant or a voter in these committees. However, in an architecture firm where all employees are professional and projects are often completed collaboratively, the union's dogmatic schism between "labor" and "management" is probably anachronistic. In that type of business, those definitions are more fluid, such that "management" on the committees may not be any different from any other employee in many aspects of the employment relationship, especially if the management in question are not partners in the firm. Such issues cannot be evaluated without further information, so without that information there is grounds to file an appeal, but the company cannot expect the appeal to be upheld.